Philosophy 302: Ethics

[Pages:41]course syllabus

Philosophy 302: Ethics

section 05 mwf 10:00 am?10:50 am Department of History and Philosophy

lander university greenwood, sc 29649

Lee C. Archie Fall, 2005

Version 0.7 c 2005 License GFDL

Contents

1 Essential Information

1

1.1 Supplementary Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.2 Appointments--Office Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.3 Email Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.4 Logic Lab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.5 General Education Core Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2 Course Description

2

2.1 Catalog Course Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.2 Textbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.3 Purpose of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.4 Objectives of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.5 Specific Skills Achieved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.6 Course Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.7 Narrative Description of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.8 Teaching Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 Course Requirements

7

3.1 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3.2 Grades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.3 Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.4 Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.4.1 Email Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.4.2 Configuring for Text-Only Messaging . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.5 mwforum Ethics Message Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.5.1 Registering on the mwforum Ethics Message Board . . . 11

3.5.2 Posting to mwforum Ethics Message Board . . . . . . . 13

3.5.3 Filling In Profile Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.6 Philosophy Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.7 Book Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.8 Philosophy Chat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.9 Grade Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.10 Grades Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.11 Your Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.12 My Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.13 Class Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

A Test Review Sheets

23

A.1 Test 1: The Problems of Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

A.2 Test 2: Determinism, Religion, Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

A.3 Test 3: Self-Interest and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

A Book Review Question Format

26

A.1 Bibliographical Data (include title and author) . . . . . . . . . 26

A.2 Background Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

A.3 Subject Matter of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

A.4 Method of Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

B Selected Bibliography

27

B.1 Recommended Reference Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

B.2 Periodicals in Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

C Class Assignments

29

D How to Calculate Your Semester Grade

35

List of Figures

1 Configuring Hotmail for Text-Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2 Configuring Hotmail for Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3 How to Register for mwforum Message Boards . . . . . . . . . 12 4 How to Login to mwforum Message Boards . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5 How to Post to the mwforum Message Board . . . . . . . . . . 13 6 How to Submit the Post or the Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 7 How to Find a Record of Your Posts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 8 How to Open the Chat Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 9 How to Login to the Chat Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 10 How to Enter Chat Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 11 Where to Find Grades Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 12 How to Log in for Grades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

1 ESSENTIAL INFORMATION

1 Essential Information

Instructor: Lee C. Archie Office: LC M33 Telephone: 864-388-8383 Email: larchie@philosophy.lander.edu

Office Hours MWF 9:00-10:00 TTh 9:30-11:00 ICQ: 14365150

1.1 Supplementary Materials

Philosophy Homepage: Ethics Homepage: mwforum Ethics Board: Ethics FAQ: Philosophy Chat: Online Grades: How to Study: topics.html

1.2 Appointments--Office Hours

I look forward to talking to each of you about our ethics course. You are warmly encouraged to stop by my office to discuss classroom lectures, papers, ideas, or problems. Online office hours are from 8:00 to 9:00 PM on the evening prior to tests via Philosophy Chat at .

1.3 Email Protocol

If you have a personal question, concern, or problem, email your instructor at the first opportunity. If you have questions about class procedures (class policies, homework problems, class requirements, grading, assignments, or other housekeeping matters), post online to the mwforum Ethics Message Board. Also if you have questions about class content (philosophical concepts, conceptual questions, or understanding the subject-matter of philosophy), post online to the mwforum Ethics Message Board. In this manner all persons in the class will have access to the same information concerning class procedures and class content.

1.4 Logic Lab

A small Logic Lab in LC M33 consisting of three networked computers is open to all philosophy students during office hours or by appointment. Students are

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1.5 General Education Core Requirements 2 COURSE DESCRIPTION

encouraged to stop by the Lab to set up email accounts, practice with online quizzes and tests, check lecture notes, read the mwforum Message Boards, or research topics in ethics on the Internet.

1.5 General Education Core Requirements

Note especially: Although Phil. 302 fulfills the General Education Core Curriculum Requirement for Humanities for most majors, this course does not fulfill the requirement for logic and analytical thought. If you are seeking to fulfill the logic and analytical thought requirement by registering for a philosophy course, you need to enroll in Philosophy 103: Introduction to Logic.

2 Course Description

2.1 Catalog Course Description

"The moral principles of conduct and the basic principles underlying these principles such as good, evil, right, wrong, justice, value, duty, and obligation. The ethical works of philosophers are analyzed in terms of these concepts. Three semester hours." From the Lander University Catalog.

2.2 Textbook

Lee Archie and John G. Archie. Introduction to Ethical Studies: An Open Source Reader. Version 0.11 GDFL, 2003. (Not available at the Lander Bookstore.)

Available in these formats: HTML: . PDF: . MP3: . (Under development). Current Tarball: . CVS Repository:

2.3 Purpose of the Course

The class essentially centers around three topics:

1. What is the nature of the life of excellence?

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2 COURSE DESCRIPTION

2.4 Objectives of the Course

2. What is the ultimate worth of the goals you seek?

3. How do you rightly obtain your life goals?

Although these questions are simply stated, they prove to be most difficult to clarify. The objective of the course is for you to establish some good answers to these questions in light of a critical analysis of several important theories of ethics, including, among others, the ethics of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Mill, Epicureanism, Stoicism, egoism, and utilitarianism.

2.4 Objectives of the Course

Some specific aims of our ethics course are

1. What are the differences among folkways, mores, morals, ethics, and metaethics?

2. What are the distinctions among moral, nonmoral, amoral, and immoral concerns?

3. What are cultural relativism, ethical relativism, ethical absolutism, ethical nihilism, and ethical skepticism?

4. How do we distinguish contributing, necessary, and sufficient conditions for a good life?

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages to various criteria of truth, such as authority, consensus gentium, legality, conscience, revelation, intuition, science, and reason?

6. Why be moral?

7. What are the varieties of egoism and hedonism? Are these philosophies mistaken?

8. What are the central tenets of some classical theories of ethics?

9. What are the aims of duty ethics, religious ethics, naturalistic ethics, the ethics of self-realization, and utilitarianism?

10. What are the relations between an individual ethics and a societal ethics?

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2.5 Specific Skills Achieved

2 COURSE DESCRIPTION

2.5 Specific Skills Achieved

Upon completion of this course, all students should be able to

1. demonstrate basic skills of Internet research, email, and Message Boards,

2. distinguish clearly among factual, attitudinal, and verbal disputes in ethics,

3. construct premisses and conclusions for inductive arguments,

4. identify the common fallacies in ethical reasoning,

5. evaluate various types of ethical theories,

6. identify the differences between a sound ethical theory and a persuasive ethical theory.

7. understand some of the common mistakes made in business, medical, and ecological, and environmental ethics as taught in other disciplines, and

8. understand some of the limitations of current theories of ethics and metaethics.

2.6 Course Procedures

The methods used to obtain these ends are

1. to learn to identify ethical arguments, to evaluate and counter them, and to construct good arguments,

2. to obtain the ability to relate arguments to one another and to judge the relative strength of different kinds of arguments,

3. to analyze different techniques of definition and kinds of meaning in ethics,

4. to obtain the ability to identify common mistakes in ethical reasoning and to reconstruct arguments to avoid them,

5. to gain skill in evaluating ethical theories,

6. to recognize the differences between the inductive and deductive sciences and how they relate to ethical theories,

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2 COURSE DESCRIPTION

2.7 Narrative Description of the Course

7. to study classic, influential, and abiding methods of experimental inquiry into the nature of ethics,

8. to apply usefully the several methods of inductive reasoning in everyday life and ordinary language.

This course will help you gain skill in asking interesting, productive, and insightful questions and will analyze ethical passages to obtain facility in the clear, complete, and methodological undstanding of their content. It will also help you to learn effective methods of analysis and criticism in the evaluation of ethical argumentation.

2.7 Narrative Description of the Course

There is little doubt that many teachers attempt to inform students to an excessive degree: students have little enough time to assimilate the information given them, much less to entertain such questions as

1. What is the nature of this information?

2. What is the scope of its application?

3. What is the context and limits of its truth?

It might be surprising to learn that some studies show students acquire information just about as well with a teacher as without one. (Indeed, teachers learn the same way students do.) These are some general reasons why our ethics course is not a course designed to be primarily informational, instead the class is more adequately described as an introduction to shared inquiry into the clarification of life's values.

I think you will find that learning, inquiry, and problem solving are most enjoyable human experiences. I expect to learn a great deal from our shared inquiry. You and I both have a personal stake in the quality of the class and personal responsibility for making it challenging. This class, more than any other class in your university career, is designed to encourage you to think about your responsibility for your life course.

We will adopt certain techniques recommended by many educators, namely those of guided discovery through problem-oriented Socratic lectures, group discussion, simulations, papers, and review examinations.

Socratic lectures are used to focus on prinicples and methods appropriate to our study of ethics. The lectures are not expository. Ultimately, of course, you learn about a method, not by listening to me talk, but by using it yourself.

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